A therapist's take on life, the world, you and me.

Stay away from the Pet Cemetery

I don’t read a lot of Stephen King novels. That’s not because I dismiss his skill as a writer. It’s because they scare the hell out of me.

In this one, the main character is a young doctor. He’s on his first day at a hospital when a college kid is rushed into the ER. The kid was hit by a car, so he’s all smashed up, his neck broken, blood all over the place, one eyeball hanging out – whatever. Just as the doctor is concluding he’s dead, an arm shoots out, grabs the doctor by the collar and the dead kid stares at him (with his working eyeball.)

“Stay away from the Pet Cemetery!” he intones.

In a flash, it’s over. The kid is stone cold, and the doctor wonders if he was hallucinating.

The suggestion to stay away from the pet cemetery, however, is a sensible one. Like most sensible suggestions, it goes entirely unheeded.

I don’t want to give away the ending (and I only read the first 20 pages because I got scared) but I suspect, if he stays away from the pet cemetery, flesh-eating zombies won’t become an issue.

But he doesn’t listen!

Lawyers are the same way. They just don’t listen!

Here’s another scary story. My client was in law school. With a big smile, she announced to her journalist boyfriend she was accepting a job at the big, prestigious law firm where she’d summered the year before.

He grabbed her by the collar, his face etched with horror, and intoned: “But you hated that place. It totally weirded you out. You said you were pursuing public interest. Why would you go back there?”

She didn’t listen. Now their relationship is over, and she’s hating her job and her life and weeping in my office.

“Why didn’t I listen?”

But she’s not the only one. You had moments like that, too – didn’t you? When someone tried to warn you?

My Pet Sematary moment came the summer before I started law school.

I was visiting home, went to a party and ran into an old friend – a guy I’d known since I was about twelve years old. I casually related the big news – I was going to law school! I expected one of several possible reactions:

an expression, feigned or otherwise, of happiness that I was finding my way forward in the world;

a tinge of jealousy that he was still a burn-out art student while I was on my way to wielding staggering corporate power; or

curiosity about law school and how he might follow in my tracks.

I didn’t get any of those reactions. I got disappointment and concern.

“It doesn’t feel right. You’re a good guy – think hard before you do this.”

I didn’t listen. I knew “selling out” was part of “growing up.” I was acting like an adult, getting serious for a change. This guy – a computer geek interested in being an artist – knew nothing about my future as a high-powered corporate lawyer. He was probably jealous.

In reality, he knew a lot. He was a few years older and had friends who did the biglaw thing. He knew the scoop, and spotted me as a train wreck waiting to happen. He also knew it was pointless to try to stop someone firmly committed to self-destruction.

Stay away from the pet cemetery!

Why is it so hard to listen, respectfully, when someone who knows you well, and knows what he’s talking about, tries to warn you law might not be right?

Part of the answer is that lawyers tend to be loners. You’re smart and competitive and you do it yourself. You’re probably young, too, when you make the decision to pursue biglaw. Young lawyers are eager to please, to find success and gain attention. They’re not known for an eagerness to listen to others and take advice.

People resist psychotherapy for the same reason. There’s the thought – “what’s this guy going to understand about me or my situation I don’t already know?” That’s the first barrier to overcome – accepting you might need another person’s feedback to discover something useful about yourself. It’s not only about trusting a therapist, either. In group psychotherapy you learn that a collection of strangers might have a lot to tell you. They can spot things you miss in your own world.

A basic tenet of psychotherapy is that we need one another to heal. Opening up and listening to other people, tolerating their feelings and taking in their feedback, is a step towards maturity.

Nowadays, when someone tells me to stay away from the pet cemetery, I sit up and listen. I wish I’d learned that lesson sooner – it might have saved me a whole lot of trouble and wasted time.

Stay away from the pet cemetery!

Don’t turn up your nose at good advice. It wouldn’t kill you to give it a listen.
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This piece is part of a series of columns presented by The People’s Therapist in cooperation with AboveTheLaw.com. My thanks to ATL for their help with the creation of this series.

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33 Responses

While I agree wholeheartedly to listening to other people’s advice, especially people in whom you trust, I am a bit sceptical of the “pet cemetery” theory. Anyone who gives advice will give advice based on their own experience, personality and values, which may not be the same as mine. How are you then supposed to distinguish someone who truly knows you and realises that a path you’re taking is wrong, to someone who means well and thinks that the path you’re taking is wrong but is actually himself mistaken?

You can even look at it from the totally opposite point of view. I partly went into law because everyone was telling me how great I would be at it and how much I’d love it. I don’t recall anyone, ever questioning that choice, all I got was pats on the back. All of these people had my best interest at heart but they also had their own view of what a good career was or wasn’t.

Agreed. A huge difficulty is finding people who know you and have good advice. Most people, short of saints and bodhisattvas, may tell you what they think or want to hear because that is what they see and believe. Back when I went into law, some friends supported, some were neutral, and my coworkers were 150% hostile (but only because I was getting out of that dysfunctional office – they didn’t care about me, just that they were left behind stewing in their bad office culture).

Two people told me not to go into law school. I’m glad I didn’t listen to either – I may not always love what I do, but I have been employed and paying my bills, and of the two naysayers 1) one flunked out of Tier 4 in her first year and 2) the other could never keep any kind of job after her scholarship supported time at a Tier 1. I’m not either of those. Their truth sure wasn’t mine.

Family was elated because I’d be the first with a professional degree in that family branch, and their idea of life with a professional degree was all glory and material goods (= happiness). No good, neutral, dispassionate advice there either.

While one should avoid the pet sematary, one should not avoid the Ramones song by the same name, or any Ramones song. Punk might set us free!

I have to agree with both commenters. I remember the people who told me not to go to law school – my perception of their “advice” was that it was coming from people who hated where they were in their lives and it had nothing to do with me. Had there been someone who actually engaged in a conversation about the issue rather than projecting their own frustrations and experience on me, I might have been more receptive. I would have still gone, but I think I would have had a greater understanding of what I was walking into. I’m glad I didn’t listen, that I didn’t let a horror story scare me off – at the same time, there is much to be learned from those who have been there before. Life is much more complex than a simple piece of literary entertainment.

No one told me not to go. My dad, a lawyer, was elated. He’d been telling me for years that a law degree “is a good degree to have.” In retrospect, I think he was talking to himself. He liked (and likes) being a lawyer, but he was going through some professional upheaval. I wish I had quit after my first year, after he kept saying (as all lawyers eventually do) that the golden years of the law were long gone. He was right, and when I say it, I’ll be right, too. Of course, like many lawyers I know, I don’t know what other thing I would have done.

I was “warned off” of going to law school, as a second career, by a lawyer friend. She had graduated from CLS, gone to a top firm, lateraled once to another top firm, gone back for an LLM at NYU, and then gone in-house (where she now has a very senior position). The substance of her warning was that it’s not as easy as you think (i.e., you may think you’ll succeed, but you’ll fail — don’t risk it). This was ten years ago, in a different economic climate.

I didn’t listen to her. I quit my job, went to law school, graduated at the top of my class, went to a top firm, and am still at that firm as a senior associate — happy as a lawyer, challenged by my work, and delighted to have quadrupled my income in ten years.

My story challenges the underlying basis of all of the posts on this site, so I don’t expect love and hugs. But there it is.

Granted. I think that’s mostly because people make bad decisions, and then look to blame others for the consequences of their own decisions, which leads to finger pointing, whining, and beating of one’s breast. Doesn’t leave a lot of space for delight.

But I have to point out, in fairness, that the “delight” in my post above was in reference to the money. Even in relative terms, I am happier as a lawyer than I was in my past life, and my work is more challenging and interesting than it was before law school. But the objective “delight” comes from being fairly compensated, even in the context of my own (probably inflated) opinion of my worth.

Um, I think the comments might be illustrating the point of the story.

I find that mere acquaintances, whatever their qualification, tend to be dead-honest and correct when they make an assessment. They don’t have an agenda. They might not have the perspective to understand the larger picture, but unlike my friends or family, they also don’t have a reason to persuade me one way or the other.

Which brings up another problem with lawyers, which was not mentioned in the article. They insist on over-valuing advice from suspect sources, based on prestige. Someone with an agenda is someone with an agenda. It doesn’t really matter how prestigious and respected the source of your info, it matters what’s in it for them.

Of all my friends, only the lawyers find it impossible to evaluate information critically if it’s from a prestigious source, and that is really quite ironic, considering they’re the only people with the training in critical evaluation.

It was my fellow engineering students who pointed me in the direction of law. They basically said I could make big bucks working 80 hours a week and never seeing my family as a patent attorney. I figured it couldn’t be worse than chemical engineering and I wanted steady positive cash flow that was more than I would get from engineering, so I went. On paper, the pay looked better than Chem E and I would break even in 12 years.

I knew law school was a bad idea. But I also knew that engineering was a bad idea, too. It was basically a choice between bad ideas for me. I didn’t have any actual interests in terms of a specific career.

I just viewed a career as a way to legitimately generate a significant cash flow.

The premise of many of your posts was that you regret going to law school. But the truth is, probably a large part of your success as a psychotherapist has to do with the fact that you went to law school, worked at Biglaw, and now can understand people who come from that world. Would you still be able to do the work you do without having gone to law school and had those subsequent experiences? Yes, but maybe not as effectively. I very likely would not be reading a blog of yours now, had you not had my experience. You probably serve all sorts of ppl, but you also have a nifty niche practice comprised of dissatisfied attorneys.

I do enjoy reading your posts, but I don’t think people can willy nilly wish away past experiences without also reflecting on the positive aspects of what it has also brought them.

I think NYCAtty is correct when he (or she) says “I don’t think people can willy nilly wish away past experiences without also reflecting on the positive aspects of what it has also brought them.”

I am a biglaw refugee of a different stripe. Since age 19, I was hell-bent on being an attorney. My first job out of undergrad was as a paralegal at an AmLaw 100 firm in LA. I knew I needed to see the real world before signing up for law school. This was 2004, when tuition and competition for places at law schools were both ratcheting up.

I loved working with so many intense, highly intelligent people. I like lawyers. I like their quick-witted-ness and sense of humor.

However, just seeing the hours (and experiencing a few 70-hour weeks myself), made me really question law school.

Seven years later, and I haven’t really found any answers. I tried other fields in the meantime– entertainment market research, and I’m currently working on a Master’s in Urban Planning.

I’m female, and I’ve found that having good relationships and financial stability is more important to me than prestige or even finding some sort of deep fulfillment from work.

I’m single, pushing 30, and in my ways I have screwed myself over from ever achieving the things I want most– a family of my own and homeownership. I came to grad school in Urban Planning because I honestly believed that the fulfillment that I would get from working in a field that interested me for years before law school was ever on the radar was worth the financial risk of lost earnings and student loans. It wasn’t. Its just paper-pushing of another stripe.

Sometimes I wish I would have cashed in my 3.9 GPA and 169 LSAT and gone to biglaw. I may have ended up a burnt-out lawyer, but they have more far more resources than burnt out grad students like myself.

I’m intrigued by Nicole’s reference to lawyers’ senses of humor, because I’ve been in Biglaw for two years, and I’ve never seen such a thing. In fact, at this point, I’d even settle for glimpsing a trace of personality. But, sadly, the well is bone dry.

Will, let me start by saying that, having recently discovered your blogs via ATL, I enjoy reading both your articles and the many thoughtful responses that your work generates.

I also get the strong sense from reading your posts that you are 1. a very nice chap, and 2. probably far too gentle to have lasted long term in biglaw. So good for you (for realizing that and finding a better option for you).

That said, how long ago did you leave S&C, and how much longer do you think it will take before the bitter taste leaves your mouth? One of your posts said “we committed suicide a little each day just by staying there and putting ourselves through that abuse as our lives passed us by” – what the heck were they doing to you exactly? Surely you must admit that your generalizations about the terrors of biglaw, and S&C in particular, ignore some pretty significant positive aspects of the biglaw experience (and S&C).

Maybe you could write your next post in response to the question – “Okay Will, we get it, you think biglaw sucks. What else have you got?”

Also – I’m asking everyone who’s read Life is a Brief Opportunity for Joy to please post a review on Amazon or Barnes & Noble.com. I’m trying to spread the word, and readers like to hear other readers’ responses.

Hmm . . . you sound really angry, Will. Maybe still angry about your experience at S&C, maybe angry about money otherwise. It certainly seems strange that you would expect an anonymous poster to send you money, or “if nothing else,” to buy your book.

Isn’t this blog a MARKETING TOOL for you? Why would you expect a reader, in addition to reading your online promotional materials, to have sent you money for “all [your] hard work?” What’s Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba?

A more interesting question is whether (or why) a lawyer would want a “people’s therapist” who is still so angry himself about his own experience in the law.

I am really angry. And no, this blog is not a “marketing tool” – or if it is, it’s a marketing tool for my book, since the whole idea for this blog came from my literary agents, who thought I needed a bigger “platform” to market that book, which I wrote long before this blog existed. The whole “writing for lawyers” idea, or even the “being a therapist for lawyers” idea came later – in fact, I stumbled onto it because I realized I was so angry I needed to get some things off my chest and lo and behold, I started hearing from lawyers who liked what I was writing. But I’ve been a therapist for a long time and was doing just fine before, thank you.

Hecuba and my desire to get the ideas in my book out there into the world are close associates, Prince Hamlet. It’s a good book, I worked hard on it, and if you like the blog (which I also work hard on), you might as well buy a copy and give it a try.

Another thing – if I were still a lawyer in big firm hell, I’d be grateful to see a therapist who’s actually been there and seen that world from the inside. If he weren’t angry about what he saw and experienced at a place like S&C, I’d think he was nuts.

Okay; I get it now. You hated S&C, left really really angry, went back to school, and found a new and more fulfilling profession. But even many years later you found yourself still filled with anger about your experience at S&C, and so turned to writing to get it off your chest. And this blog is about marketing that writing, especially as you have compiled it into a book.

I’m sure your book is a good book; and I’m sure you worked hard on it. But as someone who doesn’t hate the practice of the law or working at a big law firm, I’m not incentivized to give it a try.

Let me try this again. I left S&C – and law – behind back in 1999, and became a marketing executive in the book business for a few years, then decided to return to school and become a psychotherapist. My specialty, after working at St. Vincents Hospital, in Greenwich Village, was working with gay men with HIV. That expanded into a more general practice with people from all sorts of backgrounds, although very very few of them, to my knowledge, were lawyers. I was inspired to write a book reflecting my approach to psychotherapy and the philosophy of conscious, joyful living reflected in that work. At some point my agents told me to create a blog, and somehow or other I ended up being interviewed by AboveTheLaw. At that point they asked me to write about lawyers and psychotherapy – and I discovered all that anger and bitterness (yes – the famous anger and bitterness!) from my biglaw days was still there, and it started pouring forth. There is not one single mention of law or lawyers in “Life is a Brief Opportunity for Joy” – it is simply a book about psychotherapy and the human mind, and as profound and thoughtful a book as I could produce. The whole writing about law thing was simply a fluke that happened long after the book was written. Nonetheless, I’m hoping a few lawyers who enjoy my writing will give it a read.

“Maybe you could write your next post in response to the question – ‘Okay Will, we get it, you think biglaw sucks. What else have you got?'”

Who said there had to be anything else? I think that for some of us — myself included — these posts (and maybe the book, who knows) are helpful and do not get old. I am sure there were plenty of nice people at S&C when Will was there, just as there are plenty of nice people at my firm. That doesn’t change the fact that biglaw might be a bad place for me and many others. And when you are trying to survive in a big city, with massive debt, working 70-hour weeks, it can get very hopeless very fast.

For me, law was a second career and lately, it feels like it was my last shot because in the current economy, employers want cookie-cutter pedigree people, they do not want “losers” trying for a 3rd career. And I often feel like I failed by not succeeding in blglaw, even though in my most logical moments, I know that’s ridiculous. For the record, I’m still in biglaw but am hanging by a thread.

So reading these posts is helpful for many of us. I, for one, don’t care so much if Will has other topics to write about. I enjoy these posts and they help me keep perspective. From many of the comments, I know I’m not the only one. Now, if only there were people out there we could hire to help those of us trapped in biglaw find new jobs so that all those people who love it, or who want in, can get in and stay in.

Will, you should post recommendations for legal career counselors if you have any.

I agree with much of that, and am more sympathetic than you think. I too am in biglaw, well aware of the systemic flaws, and spend a lot of time thinking about alternative paths. I also have plenty of debt, believe me. But, I don’t see myself as being trapped, and definitely don’t feel victimized. I chose this path for myself and will forge on, focusing as much as possible on the positives, until I see a way to jump to a better path.

My initial post was deliberately provocative, but the principal aim was only to encourage Will to move past the identification of the problem stage, so that we can hear more of his views on solutions. Maybe that’s all in the book, which I’ve now bought and will read with interest. (Understandably Will doesn’t want to give away the milk for free.)

I see these posts serving as a healthy corrective to some of the entrenched myths about the law that are floating out there. To me, Will is just pointing out that the emperor has no clothes – i.e., that a lot of lawyers are unhappy; that for many, law school leads to a mountain of debt that is not easily discharged; that the practice of law is a disappointment to many, many lawyers; that deep down (or not so deep down), many lawyers find BigLaw unfulfilling, etc.; and that law schools have an interest in perpetuating certain myths about legal education, the job market, and the practice of law.

I just picked up a copy of Life is a Brief Opportunity for Joy. Looking forward to reading it.

I find the best question to ask people who want to go to law school is deceptively simple: Why? If they talk about money first, then it’s time to have them work out their real salary–in a scenario that doesn’t include BigLaw money, but AverageLaw money. That can be a wake-up call for some.

Granted, there’s a lot of magical thinking that goes on among folks in their early 20s. Not enough real-world experience, too little maturity. And as Will points out, sometimes people are hell-bent on this bright, shiny, parentally- and socially-acceptable goal of prestigious job with fat paycheck. After all, being goal-oriented and externally motivated has gotten them this far.

We’re not very good as a culture at teaching people to do what truly interests them first, and then figure out ways to make it pay. But as Daniel Pink talks about in
A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future, the creative class is where the economy is headed. Maybe we should all just shove copies of Pink’s book at all lawyer wanna-bes!

I shared a copy of Whole New Mind with a senior partner in my firm who was curious after hearing Pink speak. This very kind older partner, who is very much into being a lawyer, sent the book back after a few weeks with a thank you note that also said “this book reminds me of my right-brained friend.”

Not that any of us would actually BE right-brained (though there’s nothing wrong with that), but we might know someone who is….. (PS, I am)

Yes, perish the thought that right-brained lawyers might exist, let alone be the ones who can figure out how to make the profession less toxic and more happily productive. Say, by figuring out how to finally kill billable hours and create collaborative environments. Eh, just a wacky right-brained thought!

It’s time for your appointment

Will Meyerhofer, JD LCSW-R is a psychotherapist in private practice in TriBeCa, in New York City.
You can visit his private practice website at: www.aquietroom.com.
Will holds degrees from Harvard, NYU School of Law and The Hunter College School of Social Work, and used to be an associate at Sullivan & Cromwell before things changed...
Now, in addition to his work as a psychotherapy, he writes books and blog entries and a column for AboveTheLaw.com.